Only 55 days until xmas

Another hat completed. While I have knit this pattern before, I didn't remember it being quite so long, but I guess I was wrong.

Pattern: Graham, by Jennifer Adams
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash, in 'Blaze' (1952)
Needles: US6 and US8
Modifications: none

The pattern is well written and easy to follow, with the exception of the needle sizes: the pair of sizes for the circular needles is different than the pair for DPNs. Not sure what that is all about. I used a ribbed cast on.

More hats are in the queue, most of them in 'Blaze'. The idea is to provide bright headwear for family members who like to hike in the woods during hunting season. A much better idea than wearing a raccoon skin cap (TRUE STORY!)

Only 62 days until xmas

Another hat, same yarn, same pattern as the previous one but the k2p2 ribbing version.

Pattern: Ribbed Cap, by Judy Gibson, k2p2 ribbing option
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash, in Navy and Desert Sun
Needles: US7
Modifications: none.

Even though I tried to follow the pattern exactly this time, I still think the crown is wonky. Anyway, having a warm head is what is most important.

Only 66 days until xmas

Usually I knit socks for xmas, but this year that seemed like a bit much. I don't want to work that hard! So it will be hats all around instead.

Pattern: Ribbed Cap, by Judy Gibson, as a beanie with garter rib stitch option
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash, in Navy and Desert Sun
Needles: US7
Modifications: After the 1x1 band, I was supposed to switch to 2x2 but didn't (brain fart)

I don't know why I had so much trouble getting this simple project underway, but I started it at least three times, switched needles twice, and still goofed it up (see modifications above). Since I didn't realize my ribbing mistake until I reached the crown (and was NOT about to start over at that point), the crown is a bit wonky. Sometimes good enough is perfect.

Dishcloth resurrected

Handknit cotton dishcloths last forever, or so it seems. Unless, of course, one is careless with a knife or there is a weak spot in the yarn. I'm not sure which happened, but the dishcloth in current rotation incurred a serious injury. My first instinct was to toss it, but decided to try to fix it instead.

Thanks to the miracle of blogging, the original post regarding this dishcloth may be found here. This one is the "ridge and rib" pattern. Even though the cotton yarn had nearly felted from long use, I was able to tink back one pattern repeat. The only Sugar 'n Cream yarn I have is this stinky one, but it worked fine.

The old green yarn feels somewhat fragile, so we'll see how long this poor dishcloth lasts. Executing the repair was a good exercise, though, something that would not be possible with a store-bought dishcloth. Next I would like to learn to darn socks.

Vintage Kitchen socks are DONE

Socks are my go-to portable project, although sometimes I work on them at home, too. Especially toes and heels and bind offs. Still, it took me a while to finish these. Almost three months, in fact.

Pattern: Short-row toe and heel basic socks, by Wendy D. Johnson
Yarn: Knitterly Things Vesper Sock with Nylon, in 'Vintage Kitchen', and Simply Sock Yarn, in 'Natural'
Needles: US1
Modifications: None but for the contrasting toe, heel, and cuff

The Vintage Kitchen colorway came in one of the anniversary kits offered by Simply Socks Yarn Co. I don't usually purchase kits like these - my idea of a project bag is a clear ZipLoc - but I really liked the fabric pattern AND the yarn colorway.

And I am really enjoying self-striping yarn. Whether the stripes are narrow or not-so-narrow, the color combinations are very satisfying. No fancy sock pattern for these babies. The stripes say it all.

Pickin' and grinnin'

Yesterday I attended a workshop billed as From Animal to Product at the Big Red Barn near St. Joe. My goal was to get some hands-on experience with picking and washing fleece, then carding the result. The reality was heavy on the picking and washing, light on the carding.

No pics at the event itself because our hands were busy. We each received two small bags of fleece, sheep in one, alpaca in the other. We picked the sheep wool, washed it about four times, then rinsed it and laid it out in the sun to dry. We also picked the alpaca. The two fleeces were very different to work with, the former denser. We didn't wash the alpaca there - running short on time - but we were able to take it home to continue the lesson on our own.

We used a drum carder on some already carded alpaca, blending in colors as desired. Since I had to be somewhere, I worked a little orange wool into the undyed alpaca, just to say I had done it. I have some experience with drum carding already and was hoping for more practice with hand carding, mainly because I do not have $$$ to spend on a drum carder of my own. The Big Red Barn "rents" time on their drum carders, so I do have access, but I still want to learn to work with hand carders.

Just looking at the chubby rolag makes me itchy to get back to spinning. So much fiber, so little time!

Move it!

This morning (and not for the first time) I struggled with claustrophobia while trying to weave.

Once upon a time (last spring), I thought about creating a fiber studio, then decided my whole house could be my studio since I live alone. The yarn goddesses had a good laugh about that, after Beau the Destroyer of All Things Nice knocked the warping board off a table and the warping board knocked over and broke an Ott lamp (and its CFL light bulb - call the EPA!), and the lamp knocked over a planter. I moved most of my yarn stuff into the spare bedroom that my granddaughter considers "hers" - it contains a certain amount of pre-school crap and a bed she has never slept in - where I can shut the door against a certain marauder.

Even though the arrangement felt cramped, I resisted moving the bed because of the headboard and the picture over it, and making the bed is easier when it is in the middle of the room. But today I had had enough.

The bed is now against the wall, and the fiber library shelves and yarn wire shelves have swapped places. This means I can scoot my chair back more than six inches, and I have room for my wheel if I feel the urge to spin. I also find myself staring at all that yarn, wondering what I should knit/weave next. So much fiber, so little time!

That was the weekend that was

Last weekend I anticipated much knitting would occur when I visited a friend one state over. Some knitting did occur, on the socks, but sweater knitting was non-existent since I had left the critical working needle on the coffee table at home. Just as well, as I noticed a flaw in the fabric today, one that I might have let go had it been only visual. Since it would throw off the matching of the front and back at the seams, I was forced - FORCED, I tell you - to rip back about eight inches.

Over at the knit-along I am knitting-along-side-of, someone ripped back an entire l-o-n-g cardigan since it turned out all wrong for her body. Other knitters-along have ripped back cheerfully as well. I won't say I was cheerful about it, but I do want my sweater to be as near perfect as can be.

My weekend visit just happened to coincide with A Wool Gathering. Despite all the pretty yarn, gorgeous roving, raw fleeces, and fiber arts do-dads, I managed to walk away with just a knitting belt. Right now, I tuck one 13" straight needle into my armpit, which sort of works for supported knitting. I envision a knitting belt as a necessity to improving on this technique. Unfortunately, I can't find any 13" double-pointed needles above size US6. From watching YouTube videos, I see I can simply remove one end of a pair of straights and use them.

Just before I left on my weekend trip, I wove a few rows using the "natural" colored yarn. The whitish yarn completely overwhelms the other colors. Argh! So I am contemplating alternatives. Right now I lean toward variable width stripes using the yarn left over from warping, interspersed with stripes of natural. Today I weighed the leftover yarn, and I think I have enough to do this.

Fiber arts are always an adventure.

Progress report

I tell people that the most important character trait or talent a knitter needs is persistence. It takes a lot of stitches to make even small things, like socks. One must keep putting one stitch after another, until done.

I'm not done yet, but the sock heels have been turned and the front of the ruby red sweater reaches almost to my waist.

Then, inspired by the first meeting of the local weavers guild for the 2016-17 season, I started warping the loom for a blanket, to be woven in three panels. Per usual, this project has been a learning experience *already*. I used a warping board, but since the back rod/warping stick on the Ashford is not removable, one needs to jury-rig something if following the instructions in Inventive Weaving on a Little Loom. Instead, I cut the loops and threaded them through the heddle one by one.

I *was* going to try to weft with a gradient of grays, but decided it would be too challenging to get the three panels to match. I'm going with "natural" instead, but may add a row or two of something colorful, to help me keep track of the rows. The weft yarn won't arrive until Thursday, so I have been stretching out the warping stage, to keep my motivation motivating.

WIPs and pieces

I was knitting in public the other day, at the Little Turtle branch of our local library system, when a woman stopped to ask what I was knitting. Usually it is non-knitters who initiate such conversations, but this woman (whose name I neglected to get) is a knitter and a spinner. In fact, she invited me to the local spinners guild, which I know about but have yet to attend. She also clued me in on how to knit tube socks for kids: use this spiral pattern so they are more likely to stay up.

Now I am itching to finish the current socks so I can try out the spiral ones. This pic of Vintage Kitchen is just before the heel turn, one of which I completed today. Heel turns require good light and a quiet atmosphere so I can hear myself count. Rarely do I finish more than one a day.

I was hoping to hang out with the knitters in Slow TV National Knitting Eve, but the dialog is in Norwegian, necessitating the reading of subtitles. Some knitters can knit without looking, but I am not one of them, especially when working a heel turn. I watched a bit, but decided I would rather knit to acoustic music from Spotify.

The top down sweater is coming along, slowly but surely. I work the front until I reach the end of a skein, then work the back to the end of a skein. The pattern is six rows long, and I can listen to a book on CD while working it (current listen The Plague of Doves, by Louise Erdrich).

So I have a big project for knitting on the sofa and a portable one for hauling hither and yon. When the sweater is finished, I plan to complete the stalled poncho. Then there is another sweater's worth of yarn that might become a cabled pullover. And then I added a sweater to my queue today that is knit in fingering weight yarn. I think my knitting eyes are too big for my needles!

One step forward, one step back, X 3

Too bad I didn't read the Fringe Association post on incorporating a stitch pattern in a top down sweater. If nothing else, it may have spurred me to plan better. It probably would *not* have helped me deal with picked up stitches being a half stitch off, though.

And that is the lie about the so-called invisible cast on. When one picks up the stitches from the cast on, to knit in the opposite direction, they will be a half stitch off. This probably does not show (much) when knitting stockinette or garter, but loudly shouts its existence when there is a stitch pattern involved. I tried several ways of finding satisfaction with the shoulders of my drop down sweater, but finally settled on knitting an inch or so of seed stitch across the top of the shoulders, to disguise the half stitch shift.

Amazingly, I can fit my fat head through the neck hole!

Second guessing gone wild

So. After deciding to knit my drop shoulder top down ski sweater in moss stitch... I started it in the large checks that I thought I did not like. And guess what - I was right, I do NOT like the large checks. So I started over, with the moss stitch. And guess what - I was wrong, I do NOT like the moss stitch. So I swatched again, this time using the ringwood stitch i previously used for a pair of gloves and a baby sweater.

Now THIS I like! If you are ever knitting a sweater and find yourself thinking, It would be easier just to BUY a sweater, STOP and change something - the yarn, the needles, the pattern, SOMETHING. I was freaking out a bit about starting over for the third time, but I am so glad I did.

While second guessing the stitch pattern, I was also second guessing the size. Fortunately, Fringe Association posted about measuring other sweaters as a guide for determining stitch counts. I piled up a bunch of store-bought sweaters but was not sure I liked what they were telling me. Then I pulled out a handknit sweater and tried it on, to determine the ease. Perfectly zero. I usually wear something fitted under this sweater and it works fine. Let's measure it.

Just what I expected.

The next question is, How much ease do I want in my new sweater? Given swatching is a gamble and arithmetic is a lie, causing my sweaters to turn out larger than I plan, I am going to aim for zero ease on this sweater, with the expectation that some positive ease will magically appear. Perfectly logical, right?

An even dozen

I was going for a baker's dozen (13), but when it came time to start one more ballband dishcloth, I just could not do it. So twelve is enough for this summer.

Pattern: Ballband Dishcloth (from Mason-Dixon Knitting)
Yarn: Various and sundry leftover Lion Brand Cotton, in solids and prints
Needles: US7
Modifications: Used Old Norwegian cast on and suspended bind off

There really isn't much to say about this stash-busting project other than I am glad it is over. Even though it is still August and hot, the light is shifting and autumn will be here before you know it. Time to return to wool.

Here are the individual dishcloths, in case you want to see more detail.

Look what I made (sorta)

Not the ballband dishcloth (although I did make that). I'm talking about the yarn bowl. One blistering Saturday when we were tired of being cooped up in the house, my SO and I took my granddaughter to Bisque It Pottery. Nora had been to a pottery painting place before, but not one that also glazed and fired the pieces. Of course, she was "done" with hers in about five minutes. Mine took quite a bit longer.

I usually work from center-pull balls of yarn, so don't really "get" yarn bowls. Yet it seemed like the logical choice for me. (SO painted a pencil holder.) Even though I put three coats on my piece, coverage was not as complete as I hoped. For a first time attempt, I think the result is okay, though. And it is handy for keeping a ball of yarn from wandering.

Pottery painting is surprisingly soothing. (It might have been even more soothing without a five-year-old.) When Nora and I stopped to pick up our fired pieces, we scoped out all the other possibilities. I might do some dinnerware (dishwasher and microwave safe!) to continue to refine my skills. Then maybe some art for the garden?

Oh what a good swatcher am I

A knit-along is scheduled on Fringe Association. It's for knitting a sweater top down without a pattern (but with guidelines). I am not going to knit along, but maybe knit alongside. A sweater's worth of ruby yarn has been sitting in my stash, crying out to be a ski sweater. I plan to knit a drop shoulder (not raglan) sweater. I plan to knit top down (but not in the round). I am combining two patterns (not going patternless). Those three reasons are why I am not joining the KAL. But I would really like to complete this sweater before the snow flies.

The KAL starts August 15. In preparation, I dug the yarn (Cascade 220 Superwash) out of the stash (no simple task), swatched a bit on US8 needles (too loose), switched to US7, then swatched a collection of stitch motifs from "Denmark" in the Ethnic Knitting Discovery: The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and the Andes.

The stitch motifs are, from right to left: a bit of garter, stockinette, seed stitch, moss stitch (small checks), a 3x3 moss stitch (just to see what it looked like), checks (4x4), a bit that looks like basketweave (an accidental experiment), diagonals, seed-stitch triangles, solid triangles, 8-point rose all-over (yeah, I can't see it either), reverse stockinette, and some more garter. The sweater patterns calls for large checks and triangles, but I am not loving the checks. I'm leaning toward the moss stitch and seed-stitch triangles, with seed stitch edging. At least, that is how I feel today.

The pattern in this book is for a drop shoulder pullover, knit from the bottom up. I plan to follow the instructions in Knitting from the Top for a Dropped Shoulder Ski Sweater, but not knit in the round. I have knit sweaters in the round before and they make me look like a barrel. Also, I tend to overestimate how big to make them, then am stuck with the size. If I knit the front and back flat, however, I could redo the side seams if I wanted to slim the sweater down. Theoretically. I also want the back welt to be longer than the front because I really plan to wear this sweater while cross country skiing and would like to not feel a breeze down the back of my pants.

The yarn has more drape than I would prefer, but I purchased it on site at Webs when they were having an anniversary sale and it was the exact color I wanted. Superwash wool doesn't have the loft of plain wool, but I get so hot when skiing I think I will not miss it. (Gah - I am already second guessing my choices and I haven't even started the darn thing yet!)

Xmas in July

I finished the Sugar Plum Mountain socks. They look rather xmas-y. This is the last of the xmas-themed self-striping yarn I purchased from Simply Sock Yarn Co.

Pattern: Short-row heel and toe basic sock, by Wendy D. Johnson
Yarn: SSYC Poste Yarn, Striping, in 'Sugar Plum Mountain' and SSYC Simply Sock Yarn in 'Silver Lining'
Needles: US1
Modifications: None really, other than to knit the toe and heel in contrasting yarn, as self-striping yarn does not work well with short rows; the cuff is in contrasting yarn as well

At least, I *think* this is the last of the xmas-themed yarn. I go a little overboard when I visit the store and see new batches of their self-striping Poste Yarn. A couple of weeks ago, I went in to buy another skein of 'Silver Lining', and somehow left with 'Seattle Coffee Blues' as well.

The next few days are going to be hot, hot, HOT, weatherwise. I expect to spend some quality time with my fiber projects. Stay tuned!

Tools of the trade

I went to Minneapolis last weekend. One of my favorite things to do when in another city is to visit a local yarn shop. So we stopped by Depth of Field Yarn.

I'm not in the market for more yarn right now, but what interested me about this shop is that they sell weaving supplies. Of course I found some tools I need: a boat shuttle (and a bunch of extra spools) and another threading hook (as the one that came with my loom is only okay).

The plastic boat shuttle was about half the price of this nice wood one, but I am tired of being cheap economical. Good tools are not only useful but a joy to use. And I'm worth it.

Summer status

I admit I am not much of a summer knitter, and when I do knit, I default to cotton. This summer, for some reason, I decided to knit dishcloths using the Ballband Dishcloth pattern. I'm on number six right now. When I either tire of the pattern or run out of leftover Lion Brand Cotton yarn, I will post more details, such as they are.

I started warping yarn for a blanket, using a warping board. I carefully calculated the yardage needed, but then neglected to actually measure the amount of yarn on hand. (I'm using the leftovers from the Fibonacci vest.) After a while, it became obvious I was going to run short. Stymied, I stopped warping, but recently figured out how I want to move forward. I will need to purchase more yarn, for the weft, though. Such is the life of a knitter/weaver!.

One problem I have is how to transfer the warps to the loom. Since randomness is a feature of the pattern I am using, it doesn't really matter if I goof up the order of the colors, but I would really like to know the "official" method of doing this, with lease sticks (which I don't have) on an Ashford rigid heddle loom. I've looked at YouTube videos and read instructions in books, but am not really getting it. Fortunately, I joined a weavers guild, so have some experts who can help.

What do you knit in summertime?

Splurge

I am the type of person who uses a Ziploc bag, reinforced with duct tape, for my sock projects. And the last thing I need is more sock yarn. However, that did not stop me from indulging in this anniversary kit from Simply Sock Yarn.

I don't sew except in extreme circumstances, but that doesn't mean I can't admire and covet particular prints, like this vintage kitchen one sewn into a flat sock bag by Bird Leg Bags. Throw in some color coordinated striping sock yarn and I'm helpless. The macaroon stitch markers are icing on the cake.

(An aside: For some reason, the Knitterly Things yarn label says to hand wash and dry flat, even though the yarn is made from superwash wool and nylon. WUWT?)